


What's in a name?.

by JoeKerr019



Series: The Blackout Club Chronicles [1]
Category: The Blackout Club (Video Game)
Genre: Funeral, Multi, Prologue, magick
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-20
Updated: 2019-08-20
Packaged: 2020-09-19 09:44:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20329114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JoeKerr019/pseuds/JoeKerr019
Summary: A prologue story for The Blackout Club events.





	1. What's in a Name?.

It wasn't a dark nor stormy night. it wasn’t raining. The train tracks laid dormant as the carts were covered in silence.  
The dozen children were holding little mementos in the name of their martyr, their fallen soldier.  
Big sister to some, Babysitter to others, Crush for a few.   
The kid with glasses was the first to step in closer as there was nothing but silence in the woods. One of the kids grabbed a beaten up CD, New Order was Her favorite. The Track of Elegia was blasting through the woods.

Some of them wept, others held rage and content as in front of them lied a school picture of Isabella. some of the kids looked at the one wearing glasses as they tsk him.  
“o-oh..me?” he asked.  
“yeah, you dude!.”  
“w-why me?”.  
“because you run Dungeon and Dragons. come on say something, she was on your party!”.  
“...technically.. all of you are.” he bluntly stated. in the town in the deadzone they needed to keep themselves busy, playing in local on video games, books, tv shows and RPG were their ecstasy, their window to the outside world beyond the vast network of information.  
The kid with glasses stood in front of everyone, holding his copy of the Dungeon Master’s book.

“Tonight we shine a light for Isabella, Bella The Rogue level 8. Tonight our lanterns will shine a light in the dark for we will find you and get to you.”  
as suddenly one of the boys interrupted.  
“What makes you think she is still alive.”  
“There's no corpse. no corpse means no body, meaning she is out there somewhere.”  
there were hushes in the woods. almost like owls whispering through the dead of night, the hoots of rumors and cells preparing themselves to be sent to the maze to find any hints of their fallen comrade.  
“Now, She was the first of us to go into the eternal darkness and disappear. im sorry to say she won't be the first one. We all knew her, we all borrowed stuff to her and from her, We all copied her exams or gave her our answers. The Voices will guide us through the great darkness to her. And we will release her from her eternal captivity.” he coughed as he looked at the picture. Reaching into his pocket he took a red D20 and placed it in front of isabella’s picture. “This was your favorite.” he checked the book on his hand taking a small note from her favorite book. “When you reach the stars, boy, yes, and live there forever, all the fears will go, and Death himself will die. “ he quoted. His figure stood aside as a girl left a copy of a Foo Fighters album saying “Thanks for teaching me about Dave Grohl.” he uttered, crying as she moved away. Another boy soon would follow leaving a small envelope. “I..i liked you.” he whispered. there was no mocking, no humiliations, only respectful silence. another girl left a beaten up novel “Here's your old copy of Narnia.” she whispered. for that was their funeral rite, to acknowledge what the people we loved did for us, and in return to thank them for whatever they did for us. For every A+ they got thanks to them, for every new song they discovered, for every piece of clothed borrowed and that changed one’s image.. That's how they mourned and how they cried for their missing friend.

A couple of minutes later the different groups lied inside and outside the cart. One kid with a bandana and dark skin peeked outside holding sticks in his hand.  
-Alright, we are going to scan the maze again. you know the drill!, cells of four!.  
he approached one group that stood up  
-The Dream warriors!. one girl screamed as she took the stick.  
-The Dungeon Crawlers!.- said the kid with glasses as he took another stick  
-Lore Hunters!. cried a younger kid as he took a piece of a stick  
-Da Bois!`` shouted a bigger kid taking another stick  
-Party Poisons!. shouted a girl about the same age of isabella  
-Ia F’thang!. cried a nerdy guy taking another stick.  
during the next hour, each cell would take sticks.

a red haired girl looked at the troops as two cells had the shorter sticks.  
“Alright, Party Poisons, check the maze for evidence of isabella. Dream Warriors imma need you to do recon duty on which parents are sleepers and which ones are lucids!. Lore Hunters, i need recon on the old growth!. Da bois. Pipe exchange tonight. load darts and supplies!. Dungeon Crawlers, you are doing voice duty. try to reach the gods!.”

every unit had a designation on the army of teens. 

The trains were divided into two areas, the rest and praying and the nerve center, a small freezer with energy drinks and a tv, weapons. The “leaders” were checking inventory as well reading a copy of the anarch cookbook, all the weapons and tools they had came from the word of mouth of older brothers, cool cousins and more extremist groups within the town from “The Days Before.”  
The kid with glasses was on a corner reading the D&D book, studying its words. There was something a miss.   
-What a fuck you think you are doing?  
-my job  
-You are on praying duty tonight.  
-yeah, my squad is on it, we are sleeping on turns while praying.  
-So, why are you reading that?  
-ok so...this may come as insanity but there's something that doesn' let me. - he went silent for a moment   
-I know said the older kid with the bandana, offering him a can of energy drink  
\- you know. if the voices don't kill us, or the cult, the diabetes will.  
-just shut up and drink.  
the kid with glasses smiled, opening the can as he looked up to the kid with the bandana. before taking a sip he lifted the can saying “For bella.” as he proceeded to take a sip, the leader extends his hand asking for the can as the kid with glasses handed it over.   
-For bella. said the one with the bandana, as he took a sip from it.- So, what's the plan then, smartass.  
-I guess imma go to the library tomorrow, there's something that bothers me.   
a crackling sound came from an old radio, something that sounded like a female voice gasping for air. on a corner as one of the girls rushed over grabbing the apparatus, pulling a cord and placing her lips near the mic.  
-This is Ground Control, what's your situation?. she said while checking on a list.  
-This is - the static voice said gasping for air- Tiff of the party poisons. Mission is success, angel wasn't here. we got confirmation, bella’s parents are sleepers.

there was silence. Could it be possible that her parents sold her out to the cult?. but how, that was the idea that bothered everyone.

Redmond was a small town in the middle of virginia. A dead zone for signals, a town stuck in an era before the great connection. A town stuck in the nineties. The momma and poppa video clubs were still around since netflix was dead. Steam didn't worked and the videogame business was still going. Bookstores sold the blockbusters mainly. The woods covered the town, extending through the highways into the forbidden zones outside the town.

The longest summer had become shorter by the dreaded whisper of longing. The continuous motions of the sleepers during the nights had turned the town into a guerrilla warfare type of situation.  
The blackout club was a South american guerrilla trying to liberate the town from whatever force was holding its throat and keeping it quiet. Every kid was a thinker, a soldier, a spy. And every adult was a potential threat. A civilized warfare of distrust in the heart of the american dream, but like some great poet once said ‘They call it the american dream, since it only happens while you are asleep’.  
Kids theorized about this, about what would it be like to be a sleeper. What kind of life would you be seeing, maybe a world where all your mistakes were gone, where it would always be christmas or fourth of july, the perfect dream.

The mornings were the hardest, since they had to sit with the enemy. Passing the butter, eating with them, calling their enemies ‘mom’ and ‘dad’. in a conflict where they had to remain silent to the battlefields that were the streets, the parks, the homes and even worse, the maze. the god forsaken throat , lungs and cancer that lied under their town like a tumor made of fake promises and lies.  
The “Death” of bella would force a curfew. Cops were now more active than ever, almost like a secret police to The Cult. Whatever they could gather would give The Cult a new footing on this battle against the rebellion. But the question that still lingered in everyone’s hearts and soul was “How did they found bella.” ¿Would the club members need a security protocol of some sorts?.  
The mornings were the times of recon, the times of intel, the times to prepare supplies for the ongoing war.


	2. Army of Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Realizations  
x  
Theories  
x  
Speculations

The Army of Me.

What is in a name? it'sa question that many ask but only a few can answer. Names are like music, there's a property to them. Each vowel and each annotation leads to a conclusion, a memory , a flavour to it, something we can relate to someone - like a picture-. Give me a name and i will give you a life story, failures, successes, miseries, pains. We are bound by our names and our true nature twisted into one. Call it Fate, Destiny, The Universe, Coincidence or perhaps the cosmic trickster.  
Names are like Songs, each one gives us a new sensation and triggers new memories, some names -like songs- makes us laugh and cry out of joy, others bring us down and reminds us of.   
Names give us identity and purpose, lines and fates. Perhaps if your name is Clark you may represent a higher ideal of justice, truth, perhaps a humble origin. Perhaps, just perhaps.

King’s Bookstore was one of the little corners of Redmond where The Kid with glasses would lie. Sinking his fingers between the works of Michael Moorcock and Richard Bachman, The prose of Ray Bradbury and the nihilism of Thomas Ligotti. The Dark Whispers of H.P Lovecraft and the romance of Tolkien. King’s Bookstores -name after the Author from Maine- was a small maze of old used books and new materials that were popular. Most of the books were school texts, romance novels and the things you may find in every library - The last bestsellers, a huge rack of Josh Grisham as well overloads of copies of twilight and other tween novels.- But the beauty of the process was what The Kid with Glasses called ‘Going Diving’. To him, the art of searching a book was almost like being an archeologist. Anyone would have a copy of “Fifty Shades of Grey.” but only in a few places he could get his hands on such flavours as “The Jerry Cornelius Saga.”, “Fear and Loathing in las vegas.” or the Pulp Editions of Weird Tales, or collections of it. Libraries were the little secrets where archaeologists of pop culture would dig and lie among the towers of ink. Each book was a new way to see the world and a new secret door that leaded to a world of escapism and fantasy. But sometimes these doors are carved in half truths and half lies, whatever we wanted it or not, lies were told as fiction only to hide certain amounts of truths. Mr. Philips knew it well, an old man who had live more than anyone and lost more kids to the wars than any other person of redmond, he dragged himself carefully through the cases looking at The Kid with glasses and not saying anything. Remaining silent, smiling and sometimes bringing to his attention some rare arrival he had gotten through some “Neighbor who just left the town:” or something interesting he had found on a Garage Sale.   
The Crooked figure of Mr Philips moved in closer to The Kid with Glasses saying.  
“So, looking through fantasy again?” he asked. his voice was old almost as if his throat was full of dust. His face was thin as his eyes beared longing sorrow. Thin and long fingers, he was a walking cadaver, no one knew his actual age. but everyone knew he loved old movies, loved old books and more than anything he loved halloween. He gave little footsteps trying not to distract the Kid among the towers of books. He always had respected him for his love for the materials, for treating every page with care and trying not to harm either the cover of the yellowish paper.  
“y-yes. Mr Philips...i wondered, do you know anything about ...you know..Sleepwalking?” he asked bluntly.  
“Ah yes. Like Caligari’s Murderer?.”  
“ah..no..nevermind.”  
the old man gave a sympathetic smile saying “I see you just found my old pulp novels of ‘The Shadow’. I used to love that old radio show, i guess i still have some of the Cds of it.”  
the kid nodded saying “yeah. something like that.”  
“what worries you?” asked the old man, leaning on a leather couch as he looked down at the kid as he took notes and jumped from text to text.  
“Just some...ever seen that movie about the pod people?” he asked bluntly, not thinking much. he could be a sleeper, no. he was an old and gentle person, he couldn't be one of them, he was too weak and frail...and the idea of him being a lucid made him feel sick to his stomach.  
“Ah, you mean The Invasion of The Body snatchers? I was on my second date when i saw that movie. though I don't remember much of it, if you know what I mean.” he said with a playful smile.  
“yeah no..it's..complicated.” he said thoughtful  
the old man watched him in silence for a few moments.  
the only sound that came from within the store were the ruffling pages among the dark hallways of the store. A sudden motion as the old man stood up and walked to the back of the store as the Kid With glasses look around seeing his notes.  
“Who are the lucids?  
How do they mask themselves.  
Who is S.A.O?  
Who are the voices?  
What is a Deimos

How did they took Bella?”.

the old man approached the kid as he quickly hid his notebook.  
“Homework?.”  
“yeah” he lied.  
“Anything in particular interest?” asked the old man carrying a brown paper bag, a large figure loomed from within the beaten up bag.  
“It's..sort of complicated, it's ...How fiction inspires reality.”  
the old man nodded saying “Look. a client bought this a few weeks ago, I don't believe in this mumbo jumbo. but it's an interesting reading.” he uttered, handing the bag to the kid. the kid looked at the old man as he raised a brow saying “whats this?”.   
the old man smiled saying “Knowledge….that’ll be fifteen bucks.”

His hands were shaking as if he had taken the biggest sugar rush ever. The kid couldn't believe his eyes as he held the bag close to his chest. There were no such things as coincidences, only the univetibable. As he rushed through the stores towards his house he saw a group of kids on their bikes. one of them - the biggest- reached in calling him by his name.  
“What you carrying, dipshit?.” he asked as he and his goons surrounded him  
“Dude, not now.”   
the larger bully pushed him as the kid with glasses held the bag.  
“i said, what a fuck. are you carrying, dipshit.” said the larger kid wearing red. His goons were on his sides looking at him, examining him. Any good would work in these times.  
“something important.”  
one of them laughed and clapped as the other slapped the back of the kid’s head. he fell holding the package against his chest as the taller one looked down saying  
“So… is it so important to die for?.” he asked, holding the kid with glasses from his chin.  
“....Yes.” he muttered never breaking eye contact.   
silence claimed the street for a second or two.  
“Alright, help him up.” said their leader. Legend had it that he was a quarterback in high school, kids feared him, he could take down a couple of sleepers by himself. The leader of The Knuckleheads was reaching down for the kid followed by his goons, lifting him carefully saying.  
“be more careful, we don't know who is a sleeper here. I could have been a cop, or who knows. a stalker even, Keep your eyes peeled and contact HQ when you get home.” he said patting him on the back, as the other kids looked around.  
“Hey, I see someone coming” whispered the second behind The kid with glasses. The smaller kid looked at the leader of the knuckleheads, nodding for a moment as the leader just closed his fist and punched him in the gut. The kid with glasses fell to the ground like a sack of potatoes.   
He couldn't breath, he knew it was a measured punch but part of the act was to sell the punch. The sound of the adult’s footsteps was close by as the other member of the Cell bleached on his ear, the third one reached for his pants pulling his wallet out as the three suddenly ran away. The kid with glasses keep the package against his chest, He knew this was a necessary evil to keep the potential sleepers blind to the club’s members. The adult just stood by not saying anything as the Kid With Glasses just walked away holding the package to his dear life.

His home was empty, parents had gone to work or maybe shopping. The Tv was dead as he rushed upstairs with his treasure on hands. His bedroom was a collection of D&D books and figures, cosplays and chess medals as well works of fantasy and fiction. His bed was still messy but it would do for now, as he sat on his bed the envelope was open to reveal its treasures. ‘The Psychonaut & Liber Null’ By Peter Carrol , ‘Defense against psychic attacks’ by Dion Fortune and most important “The Magician’s Companion” by Bill Whitcomb. He opened each one that he could, cross referencing and taking notes on symbols and sigils, ideals of duality and paradox. laws of synchronicity and understanding of basic metaphysics. as the day slowly turned into night his radio started its mechanical screech. He left one of the books half opened as he quickly grabbed his own radio and answered quickly before anyone could mention his name  
-Ground control, ground control. Im reporting inn. We got an Emergency, i think i know how they got to Bella but please, keep radio silence with all the members. No names, just ask them to report to the HQ.  
-W-what. what are you talking about?  
-Names are important!, do not speak out loud!. Over and out!.

He was terrified, yet static. Laughing madly as he finally placed a piece together, He quickly ran to the garage while pushing his notes inside a bag. Climbing his bike and he pedalled as fast as he could away from his home to the woods, to the ravine.   
The train tracks were metallic serpents that shined against the lights of his bike, following them until he could see the flickering christmas lights covering the old trains. He dropped his bike while trying to catch his breath. The different kids were looking at him wondering what had happened. Some of them were muttering what was going on as he shouted between shortened breaths.  
-NO NAMES! DO NOT SAY NAMES!.  
The crowd muttered questions about what was going on, what had happened. The african american kid, one of the leaders. walked off the train saying   
-Whats wrong, what you mean no names?. you got them scared. - he said as his upsetting eyes were locked on the figure of the kid still trying to catch his breath.  
-Hey, give him a minute.- said the Leader of the KnuckleHeads, approaching him as he gave him back his wallet from earlier today. “took three bucks for supplies. sorry about the punch:” he said, his square jawline turned away from him into the crowd “give him space and give him a minute.”  
he sat down on the ground as the kids stared at him, his hands still drenched in sweat reached for his bag as he took his notes.  
“S-so ...one of you said that the Voices mentioned how ‘Important the names are’, right?” a few nodded.  
-I got myself some books about Magick, and the paranormal. “a few kids couldn'tbelieve his words, others paid close attention. For now the idea of ‘Magick’ wasn't something they were pushing off the table, considering all the weirdness that was going on  
-So listen, the book mentions how in Wicca, names have power. they kinda resonate with who we are and what we are...So..Follow me here. I think they got Bells because they figured out her name, or her true name, through her given name.

some of the kids were confused, some others nodded in understanding trying to explain the rest. The leaders looked at him as the red haired girl approached saying.  
-So. what's your plan?  
-Nicknames.  
-ok?. how so  
-If the gods can't reach our true names, they cant reach our identity.. so, I think the best we can do is use nicknames to protect ourselves.

the girl nodded as he rushed to the cart, a few moments later a large book was held up high as she gave the new orders   
-Listen up!, from now on, no real names. the least the cult may find out about us, the better!. so , to keep tabs on everyone we will use this book as ‘the book of names’ each one will write to which cell do you belong followed by your official nickname. you Wont address your real name to anyone, not even the members of the club. If you to know someone’s name, you won't say it out loud!.  
A long line started to form as every kid approached the blank page of the book, each one writing what was their new name, their new identity. Some thought it was silly, some others thought it was better to be safe than sorry. names like “Sparrow, OneFantasy, Xenoflame, JoeKerr, RubyRose,Solo,Mar,Dovakin,Cassowary,Kiki The Plushie etc…” would adorn the pages of the book, names of heroes and villains, gods and monsters were to become the myths and legends that the Voices would call from night onwards, true identities would become ashes, and false names would become shields.  
One of the leaders of the club looked as everyone write their new name as he continued “Ok. Halloween is coming up but, i need a cell to raid the Costumes store and get masks, halloween, dia de los muertos, whatever. anything to hide one’s identity. the more, the better.”

And so the document of the army was written. No names given, no faces to recognize, every new member of the club would sign his name on this book. His real name would become ashes for his true name was hidden on the bottom of a sea of the unknown, His identity was whatever he wanted it to be. His or Her face covered in a novelty mask, but his true self safe beyond the realm of sleep, beyond the grasps of The Cult.  
Bikes would ring their bells, footsteps through the tall grass. For that night they were immortal in the Halls of The Blackout Club.


End file.
